A pair of paintings by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh in London’s National Gallery were vandalized on Friday when a group of climate activists splashed tomato soup on them, shortly after two other activists were vandalized in a similar manner two years earlier. Was sentenced for assault.
The paintings from Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” series, which the artist painted in Arles in the south of France, were not damaged due to the protective glass covering. The gallery identified both as its own Sunflowers (1888) and Sunflowers (1889), on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Three activists from the Just Stop Oil environmental group involved in the attack were arrested, while the paintings were removed, examined and then returned to their place. The gallery said the exhibition reopened on Friday.
The group posted a video of the attack on social media, showing three people pouring soup on the painting. The action was apparently in protest against the sentencing of the group’s two other activists, Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, earlier Friday.
Plummer was sentenced to two years in prison, while Holland received a 20-month sentence in October 2022 for the attack on the “Sunflower” painting. Both women threw cans of tomato soup at the artwork, then knelt in front of it and pinned their hands to the wall below it. He was found guilty of criminal damage by a jury in July.
At both attacks – in 2022 and on Friday – activists wore T-shirts supporting Just Stop Oil. The group is pressuring the British government to stop new oil and gas projects and has staged high-profile stunts including at major sporting events and Britain’s transport network.
In Friday’s video, one of the unidentified activists said future generations will regard them as “prisoners of conscience” who “were on the right side of history.”
In the 2022 attack, the gilded frame of Van Gogh’s painting suffered £10,000 (US$13,000) worth of damage. At the time, museum staff were concerned that the soup might drip and cause immeasurable damage to the painting.
Sentencing on Friday, Judge Christopher Hehir said the artwork “could have been seriously damaged or even destroyed.”
Hehir was also the judge in the case against Roger Hallam, co-founder of Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, another environmental campaign group, and sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment.
On Friday he took aim at Plummer. “You clearly think that your beliefs give you the right to commit crimes whenever you want,” he said. “You don’t.”
Plummer, who represented herself and pleaded guilty, said at the hearing that she would accept whatever verdict was reached “with a smile.”
He said, “Today it is not just me or my co-defendants who are being sentenced, but the very foundation of democracy is also being sentenced.”
Five days after his guilty verdict in July, Plummer was arrested for spraying paint on departure boards at Heathrow Airport.
Lawyer Raj Chada, defending Holland, said both women checked that the “sunflower” was protected by a glass cover before throwing away the soup.